Peruvian authorities have accused Alejandro Toledo of receiving millions of dollars in exchange for public works contracts.
Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo has returned to Peru from the United States to face money laundering and corruption charges during his tenure.
The 77-year-old, who served as Peru’s president from 2001 to 2006, is wanted by Peruvian prosecutors investigating a widening scandal involving Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht.
He is accused of having received millions of dollars from Odebrecht in exchange for public works contracts.
Official images shared by the Peruvian authorities show Toledo arriving at the Lima airport on Sunday. Toledo it was delivered Friday for extradition.
Peruvian authorities accused Toledo of receiving $35 million in bribes from Odebrecht in exchange for the company winning the contract for the South Interoceanic highway.
He denies corruption allegations by prosecutors, whose charges include money laundering and collusion and who have sought a 20-year prison sentence.
Toledo is still at the airport
Al Jazeera correspondent Mariana Sánchez, reporting from Callao in Peru, said Toledo remained at the airport and was expected to be transported to prison later on Sunday.
“They will not take him to the criminal court, which was the previous plan in the center of the capital,” he said. “Instead, the country’s top prosecutor is here at the airport with the former president. They are probably talking to the lawyer as well.”
He said some of Toledo’s supporters had arrived at the airport in a show of solidarity with the former president.
Toledo’s extradition process began in 2018. He had been declared a fugitive in his country the previous year when he traveled to the US amid corruption investigations against him.
Toledo – an economist by profession, with a doctorate from Stanford University in the United States – became the second former Peruvian president to be extradited. His predecessor, President Alberto Fujimori, was extradited from Chile and is serving a 25-year prison sentence for human rights abuses.
Meanwhile, former President Pedro Castillo is in pretrial detention while being investigated on charges of “rebellion” after attempting to illegally dissolve Congress in December.
Former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is also under investigation in the Odebrecht case and was under house arrest, while former president Alan García shot himself in the head to avoid arrest in 2019 and died in hospital.